Three last questions, I swear this is it

[seelindarun]

I did it once in my very old 'hood and that cured me of the urge to do it ever again.  I don't think it was a VBT since that 'hood had 5 more generations after I moved him in.  It's groaning at around 40 households and closing in on 2000 character files alive and dead.

I made the mistake of zombifying the mascot when I couldn't stand his intrusions into his neighbours' houses to cheer.  He has 10 outgoing points, y'see, so he walks into houses without being greeted...  Anyway, after that he led a peaceful existence for a while tutoring the family children, and slowly gaining skill points when he had the time.  Because of the zombie moan-n-shuffle, the neighbours had an easier time locking him out when he loped by.

Sometime after that, zombie apocalypse was released.  Mayhem ensued, whenever he showed up on a comm lot.  He also continued to make appearances in the uni 'hood, even though he was an adult.  At max body points + all the combat experience he'd had as a mascot, he was unstoppable for any townie, and any inexperienced playables I had, no matter their skill level.  After he converted about 15 more disciples, I had to put him down.

Even though I'd had him wear zombie-appropriate, ragged clothing when he was undead, he always showed up in his mascot costume away from home.  As a ghost, I kinda like the way it adds colour to the local cemetery. 

[J. M. Pescado]

Can we confirm?  Cos if this is true and it's not a VBT, I'm gonna get one of my simgirls to marry it.  I can always kill or re-townify the mascot when he gets too damn annoying.  Might be good for moar fight too.

Marrying the mascots or cheerleaders will not harm your game, but they will continue to behave in the same annoying way even when no longer in the NPC pool. This behavior is either amusing or irritating, depending on your opinion, but it is mostly harmless. If you run out, a replacement may similarly spawn.

[Sivany]

10. save while ghosts are out and about, then do something that causes a reset. - the tombstone for those ghosts should disappear

Ah, this would explain why the tombstone of one of my dead sims has disappeared. When I installed BV the sims on that lot would all have been asleep (I almost always save the game in the middle of the night) so the ghost sim must have been out and about. Any advice on how to get his tombstone back? Is there anything I should be doing to fix my game or is it just as if I deleted the tombstone manually? (I'm assuming deleting manually doesn't cause a problem, is that right?)

[vcline]

Is it still a VBT to save a lot while a sim is talking on a cellphone?

[cwykes]

Marrying a mascot is just as annoying as the effects of some of the VBT things.  Sims not aging because you did something to them with a boolprop cheat that doesn't work is only easily fixed if you know what you're doing.  Took me a couple of weeks to sort out as a newbie.

Here's another couple of things I remembered.....

11.  Add 3 uni's to one 'hood
12.  Cancel "read to kid" in base game if you don't have the portal monitor - fix for portal bug didn't come til Uni patch/NL
13.  let sims juggle if you don't have the fix - causes random item deletion inc. portals - fixed in NL patch
14.  Save with the remote control car in place if you don't have the fix. Uni patch/NL
15.  Downloading lots made in a higher EP than your top EP - will usually crash the game...usually easy to fix, but v annoying. 

People using Numenor's base game starter to make things in base game only might want to remember 12 in particular.  It would be embarrassing to make somethig for upload where a portal had got deleted during testing......

[J. M. Pescado]

Is it still a VBT to save a lot while a sim is talking on a cellphone?

I have no reason to believe this has changed. You're welcome to try it a few times until it corrupts your lot. It's not consistent, never has been....do you feel lucky?

[seapup]

The method I use to respawn an urnstone is to place a summoner and the lot debugger on the lot. I use the teleportation shrub but any summoner should work. Enter the lot with testing cheats enabled. Pause the game and summon the ghost, ghosts are usually in the "default" family. As soon as the ghost appears, it will appear even with the game paused, click on the ghost and make it selectable. Select the ghost and click the lot debugger then select respawn urnstone. The urnstone should appear, then click the ghost again and make it unselectable, unpause, and the ghost should disappear leaving the urnstone. I don't have the game up right now and I can't remember if this option appears on the lot debugger with a regular click or shift click.

[Sivany]

Thanks seapup. I don't have the teleportation shrub so I guess I either get that or leave the family without his tombstone. I know there's some summoner options just by going into debug mode in the game like 'add neighbour to family' and others, but I'm not sure they include ghosts. Maybe I'll have a look round next time I play.

I've saved my game whilst sims have been on the cellphones before. Probably not very often because I usually save when the sims are asleep but I'm sure I've done it. I didn't know it was a VBT, I'll have to add it to my list of things not to do with my game.

[jolrei]

Thanks seapup. I don't have the teleportation shrub so I guess I either get that or leave the family without his tombstone.

Insim has summoner options as well, if you have that.

[Zazazu]

11.  Add 3 uni's to one 'hood

Is this a character files thing? I only ever have one custom linked. Oh, and guess what? Vacation spots aren't the only ones where you have the game option to click one button and add all on. You can now do this with the three Uni's. If this is truly a VBT, add this to the list of game supported ones, along with deleteallcharacters and moving occupied lots between 'hoods.

[seelindarun]

more things to do to mess up your hood:
9. make a habit of saving lots while you have loads of visitors on site and your sims are in the middles of things
10. save while ghosts are out and about, then do something that causes a reset. - the tombstone for those ghosts should disappear
well I could go on.....

Aren't these two rather contradictory?  I mean, the only time when households are uniformly idle, don't have visitors, or callers on the phone are when everyone is asleep, but if you have even a couple of tombstones, you also have ghosts.  I have seen them haunt until almost 7am, and of course by then, half the household is awake and possibly even a carpool has arrived.

Unless I simply don't have any tombstones on the lot, I'm not sure how to achieve your description of an optimal state in which to save for a reset. 

[morriganrant]

I thought the only issue with having more then one uni attached, was that the sim you send to college would sometimes be sent to one of the others, instead of the one you actually sent it to. It happened to me once or twice, I know of at least one other person that experienced it, and read about it somewhere else. No idea what it is that seems to trigger it, hasn't happened all that often for there to be any kind of pattern.
As far as I know, all the attached campuses use the same professors.

[cwykes]

11.  Add 3 uni's to one 'hood

Is this a character files thing? I only ever have one custom linked. Oh, and guess what? Vacation spots aren't the only ones where you have the game option to click one button and add all on. You can now do this with the three Uni's. If this is truly a VBT, add this to the list of game supported ones, along with deleteallcharacters and moving occupied lots between 'hoods.

Yes it's a character files thing - especially if you don't have cleaned file templates.  It was pretty disastrous when uni was the highest EP and the character file limit was a lot lower.

more things to do to mess up your hood:
9. make a habit of saving lots while you have loads of visitors on site and your sims are in the middles of things
10. save while ghosts are out and about, then do something that causes a reset. - the tombstone for those ghosts should disappear
well I could go on.....

Aren't these two rather contradictory?  I mean, the only time when households are uniformly idle, don't have visitors, or callers on the phone are when everyone is asleep, but if you have even a couple of tombstones, you also have ghosts.  I have seen them haunt until almost 7am, and of course by then, half the household is awake and possibly even a carpool has arrived.

Unless I simply don't have any tombstones on the lot, I'm not sure how to achieve your description of an optimal state in which to save for a reset. 

Catch 22 - situation normal!  Main point is to know the potential problems and avoid them where possible.

I was thinking I should add "buying a new shiny NVidia graphics card to improve performance!" ...... but I'll stick to..

16. Resurrecting the Pleasantview Bella or any other sim with incomplete data (Jsalemi reminded me of that on another thread)

[Sivany]

Thanks seapup. I don't have the teleportation shrub so I guess I either get that or leave the family without his tombstone.

Insim has summoner options as well, if you have that.

No I don't have that either. Never wanted any of its features that I don't already have hacks for. Until now that is! I think I'll go with downloading the teleporter shrub though since it will be a lot easier to uninstall afterwards.

[veilchen]

As far as uninstalling goes, the InSim Obj (object) is only one file, clearly marked, and all you have to do is take it out. The object is the science station, and even though all the spawnables show up separate in 'electronics - all' section of the buy catalog, it is only one file in your download folder.

Not trying to plug InSim, but fair is fair

I have the InSim Obj, and I use it when the game throws up and makes a mess. InSim is very handy to clean it up. Such as vacation days not subtracting properly, aging is not working properly, etc. It doesn't happen often, but happen it does. When you make the family pet controllable, it also works for/with the pet(s), just as the lot-debugger. I was very pleasantly surprised when the lot-debugger let me clean up the family pet's trash memory after I made the pet controllable.

[Sivany]

As far as uninstalling goes, the InSim Obj (object) is only one file, clearly marked, and all you have to do is take it out. The object is the science station, and even though all the spawnables show up separate in 'electronics - all' section of the buy catalog, it is only one file in your download folder.

Not trying to plug InSim, but fair is fair

I have the InSim Obj, and I use it when the game throws up and makes a mess. InSim is very handy to clean it up. Such as vacation days not subtracting properly, aging is not working properly, etc. It doesn't happen often, but happen it does. When you make the family pet controllable, it also works for/with the pet(s), just as the lot-debugger. I was very pleasantly surprised when the lot-debugger let me clean up the family pet's trash memory after I made the pet controllable.

Thanks for the info, I don't really know much about InSim since I've never bothered to use it. I think I might have been thinking of InTeen instead of InSim when I said that, or possibly just something of an entirely different name altogether! Also I didn't know the lotdugger worked with controllable pets! I'm all excited now about clearing my pets memories. Since I discovered the joys of clearing out trash memories I'm completely OCD about it.

[artemisia]

11.  Add 3 uni's to one 'hood

Is adding 3 BV vacation subhoods a VBT? I play with clean templates and noregen/antiredundancy, and after installing BV last night I stupidly added all three vacation subhoods to one neighborhood (a clean, custom 'hood that's the only one I play). I only did this because EAxis gave me the "add all" button, and because I stupidly assumed they wouldn't have the "add all" option if it *would* screw up my game.

I haven't yet played the game since installing BV. Should I restore from backup (i.e. pre-BV install) and add only one instead? (If so, are there any recommendations as to which subhood I ought to install?) This neighborhood does have several hundred character files (I'd have to check with SimPE, but my guess is between 300-500 pre-BV install, and while I know you can theoretically have thousands of files without borking the game, I also don't want to mess up this 'hood, since I do have a lot of time invested in it.)

[jolrei]

11.  Add 3 uni's to one 'hood

Is adding 3 BV vacation subhoods a VBT?
I haven't yet played the game since installing BV. Should I restore from backup (i.e. pre-BV install) and add only one instead?

I think you have misunderstood something somewhere.  As noted in previous posts in this thread, the "add 3 uni's" was a bad thing since the Uni's add a lot of dormies, NPCs and other character files.  This used to lead to overpopulation, which was a big issue back in the Base and Uni days.  This was a character files issue.  By itself, it did not *glitch* the game per se.

It is not a problem to attach all 3 BV vacation subhoods.  If you use the clean templates you can control the number of locals and tourists that "reside" in these subhoods.  In my game, I did not bother to use the clean templates, so I have the fugly EAxis tourists and locals (blonde haired asians, etc.).  You probably want to make sure that you have the latest "antiredundancy" hack installed (search for the thread on this), or you will get incessant spawning of tour guides and charlatans.

But most of us with BV, I think, likely have all 3 vacation sub-hoods (and possibly a custom one or two) installed already without problems (well, without problems associated with that specifically anyway).

[artemisia]

11.  Add 3 uni's to one 'hood

Is adding 3 BV vacation subhoods a VBT?
I haven't yet played the game since installing BV. Should I restore from backup (i.e. pre-BV install) and add only one instead?

I think you have misunderstood something somewhere.  As noted in previous posts in this thread, the "add 3 uni's" was a bad thing since the Uni's add a lot of dormies, NPCs and other character files.  This used to lead to overpopulation, which was a big issue back in the Base and Uni days.  This was a character files issue.  By itself, it did not *glitch* the game per se.

It is not a problem to attach all 3 BV vacation subhoods.  If you use the clean templates you can control the number of locals and tourists that "reside" in these subhoods.  In my game, I did not bother to use the clean templates, so I have the fugly EAxis tourists and locals (blonde haired asians, etc.).  You probably want to make sure that you have the latest "antiredundancy" hack installed (search for the thread on this), or you will get incessant spawning of tour guides and charlatans.

But most of us with BV, I think, likely have all 3 vacation sub-hoods (and possibly a custom one or two) installed already without problems (well, without problems associated with that specifically anyway).

Thanks for clarifying. Part of my confusion was because of some confusion from reading the clean templates thread (confusion has since been rectified, but at the time of the above post I wasn't sure exactly how many character files the game was going to spawn if I installed only a clean V001 and not the other 3 clean BV templates, since I did want EAxis locals), but part of it was because I wasn't sure if actually linking that many subhoods was in any way bad. As previously noted, I do have antiredundancy installed.

*wanders off to hit "thanks" button*